Evoking the West through railroad modelling and a ridiculous amount of other stuff

Valley

Post navigation

The San Fernando Valley inside of and adjacent to Los Angeles has a rich history. A number of Indian tribes lived there prior to the arrival of the Spanish in 1769. Missions dotted the landscape. The Valley became part of United States in the late 1840s. The Southern Pacific arrived in the 1870s. Wheat and other commodities produced in the Valley were important sources of traffic. Overtime, the SP spread across the Valley.

About a hundred years later, my friend B. Smith was on hand to see how things were going.

I can just see a Rockford Files episode being filmed here the next year when its production began in 1974. I can almost make out Jimbo’s orange-gold Pontiac Firebird Esprit on stakeout in a couple of these photos.

Just like the Last Picture Show, all good things come to an end. The ATSF line to Pecos (everything south of Pecos Jct.) was abandoned in September, 1990. The line to Rustler Springs in Texas and all trackage south of Loving, NM was abandoned in 2002.

You can still see where the ATSF wye was in this modern aerial photograph.

The “ghost” of the old ATSF wye in Pecos, Texas.

In a future post, also due to the fine work of B. Smith, I will highlight the Pecos Valley Southern action during the same period.